‘My father died of prostate cancer last month, but I believe he would still be alive today if the tests we asked for had been carried out.’

• Use the 5 Ws early. Another good journalism rule worth using on the web where it applies. The Ws are who, what, where, when and why (or how). Often the line in a story is formed around a combination of two or three of them within the opening paragraph.

Using the example story again:

‘My father (who) died of prostate cancer (what) last month (when), but I believe he would still be alive today if the tests we asked for had been carried out (the line).’

You'll often find that getting the key details across early in your story means using all the Ws that apply within the first three paragraphs - basically what happened, who it happened to (with or without names), when events happened, where (if you can say or hint at that), and why (or how) it happened, and - because this is the web - you're likely to then be saying what you think about it all.

• Facts not fiction. Or to steal from The Guardian, "comment is free but facts are sacred". Don't make stuff up (unless it's for entertainment and you've signalled it clearly to your readers). Don't make up facts to suit the point you're trying to make or because you can't be bothered to check the facts.

Don't make the mistake of thinking what you write online is somehow less important than what is printed. What you publish on a web page may be spidered, linked to or copied hundreds of times and your "facts" can live on on another website even after you've deleted or changed them.

Online rules that don't work so well offline

• Put yourself in your writing. Despite it's mind-boggling size, the web still feels a more intimate medium for sharing information than the print or broadcast media.

Part of that intimacy is because it is much more responsive. When you tell someone something on the web, it’s easy for them to tell you something back. But it may also be because, since its conception by Tim Berners Lee, its non-hierarchical development has generated an attitide of “we”, rather than “you and us”, that encourages conversation.

But that means trust plays a key role in online writing. The reader needs to know who has written something and whether they can trust the writer.

Do this by: Writing in the first person and/or identifying yourself.

• Write in the first person: ‘I did this’, ‘I saw that’, ‘we felt this…'. In traditional journalism, a reporter rarely writes or reprts in the first person. The role is that of the neutral observer of events. But online, where writing is more likely to include comment and opinion, using the first person style creates an immediate link between you and your reader. If this is your story, own it.

Even if your story is a comment on something else (a national issue perhaps), or you’re writing about something that happened to someone else, put yourself into the story. However, if you’re a journalist writing for an online newspaper and reporting something that’s happened to others, you’ll stick to the third person.

• Don’t be anonymous unless you have to be. When you publish material online, you’re talking to potentially thousands of strangers. If this is a story or video you want to share with all of those people you’ll never meet, why be shy about who you are? What are trying to hide from your readers by being anonymous? Even just using your first name or a regular nickname will help build trust.

Anonymity should be tool - one that helps you to report from inside an organisation for instance - not a default position.

• Credit your sources. Newspapers steal stories and quotes from each other everyday and rarely tell their readers where the oroginal story or quote was lifted from. That's not how it works online.

Whether you're referencing, summarising, paraphrasing or copy/pasting material from another source, good netiquette is that you tell your reader where the material came from - preferably by adding a hyperlink to the original story, and at least by saying where you saw the original line or story.

Crediting source material helps to build trust with your reader.

Short and sharp

• Keep sentences tight. Cut the waffle - you're not writing an essay. Think about how you would speak a sentence, rather than get hung up on how to write it 'properly'.

Question whether you need every word you've used in the sentence. Using the example opening again, here's a different version which says the same thing with double the words and half the power:

‘When my father died of prostate cancer on the 7th of January, 2007, my brothers and I were all devastated by seeing our strong parent reduced to half his weight and just fade away. But his death was made even worse for me because I believed then, and still believe now, that if the specialist tests we had asked his doctors to undertake had been carried out by the hospital.’

This second version is written like the start of an essay, the simpler version strips back any 'froth' that could detract from the power of what happened.

• Keep paragraphs tight

Aim for one idea per paragraph, and paragraphs showing no more than five sentences deep on the webpage. These techniques make it easier to read a story online where readers are more likely to scan text and skip words.

Keep sentences active

As long as it makes sense, try to use the present tense as much as possible in your online writing. Even if you're writing about something that happened in the past, give it a present time perspective.

Look at the example first paragraph again - it's describing something that has happened (father died) but puts it in the context of what's happening now (believe would be alive today).

Other examples could be:

Tony Blair must come clean (present)over the decision to go to war with Iraq. His speech last week to the WI sidestepped (past) key questions again, but it is (present) surely time for answers.

I'm a massive Redteam fan (present). I've followed them through relegation, championship crashes and financial disasters (past), but today (present) even I'm gobsmacked by this decision.

Using the present tense helps to make your story sound lively and fresh and gives it drama.

Using strong, active verbs will do the same. That doesn't mean overloading your material, but the right verb can paint a picture better than a scattering of adjectives.

For instance:

My son now cannot walk without the aid of crutches after the driver of a Ford estate car ran into him. His legs were hit with tremendous force and broken in several places. - too much detail, too little emotion.

My son was left disabled after a driver ran into him, breaking both his legs. - tighter writing but no emotion to it.

My son is disabled after a driver 'smashed into him, shattering' both his legs. - much more active sentence, using present tense (is) and two strong verbs (smashed and shattering)

My son was disabled by a driver who 'careered into him, shattering' the bones in his legs. - just as active, even though we've used was instead of is and a different choice for one verb (careered).

A word about search engines

All webpages are scanned several times a day by search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

Most search engines do this automatically - “crawling” or “spidering” each page, checking for key words and for changes to that page. What they find is indexed and the index is used to return recommended webpages when a user searches on keywords.

All search engines have their own formula (or algorithm) for ranking the pages returned in a search, but all use a mix of keyword location and frequency. There is a whole industry devoted to boosting website rankings on Google, but all you need to know is that the words in your headline and first paragraph are the most important ones for search ranking.

So, if your story is about David Beckham, putting Beckham in the headline and at least once in the first paragraph will give it a higher search ranking. However, putting Beckham as every other word will be rejected by by the search engine bots who will think you are trying to cheat the system.

Break up text

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Interact

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Balance

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Legal issues

If it’s on the web it’s published and in the public domain. This means that the material published on a website/blog is covered by the laws of the country in which the website is based – just the same as in other media.

However, the action that may be taken if a law is broken may not be the same as, for instance, against a newspaper which has a named editor. Transgressions on the web are usually dealt with by the material being removed immediately the website’s owner is made aware of it.

By taking responsibility for removing material quickly, but avoiding responsibility for what’s posted in the first place (for instance by not monitoring/moderating what’s posted) websites have avoided significant legal action. The cases that have made the headlines have generally been ones where the website hasn’t removed material when asked or has failed to stop material being re-posted when it could have prevented it.

What this means for you is that if you are posting material to a website which makes clear in its terms that you – not they - will carry legal responsibility for the material you post, then you are liable as an individual if your work breaks the laws - even if that law applies to the country the website sits in, not your own.

In the UK, some of the ones you particularly need to be aware of are the Contempt of Courty Act, defamation (libel) and laws regarding inciting others to violence or criminal acts.

The Contempt of Court Act basically stops anything being published which could stop someone getting a fair trial, starting with their arrest.

So for instance, writing about how pleased you are that the police have arrested Billy Yobb for setting light to the local primary school, because everyone knows its not the first time he's been in trouble - will get you into trouble for breach of the Act. Even if you didn't name him but gave enough details for others to know who you're talking about.

The laws of defamation (UK) basically exists to protect an individual’s reputation (professional and moral) without preventing journalists exposing wrongdoing. Defamation becomes libel when the accusation or statement is published or broadcast (including on the web).

The defence against defamation/libel is truth, ie that what was published is the truth and, crucially, that you can prove it's true to the court.

Losing a libel case that has got to court means you could be sued for damages, and the amount decided by a jury, plus the costs of the court case. However, the reality is that most libel cases are brought against media businesses (newspapers, TV), not individuals, and never get to court because the story is pulled before being published, or an apology is published after the event.

Be aware that it isn't a defence againt libel to say that you were simply repeating something someone else had written - a rumour about the sexual preferences of a local football boss can’t be repeated just because it’s being talked about in a fans’ forum on another website, it's still defamation unless you can prove it's true.

And missing out the name but giving enough details that other people will know who you're talking about is still libel, as is innuendo where you can't prove what you're implying. There are more good on defamation here.

Be cautious about the concept that everything on the web is in the public domain and therefore available to you to re-use, copy or reference. An archived story about a previous conviction can’t be referred to when reporting a current court case (Contempt of Court). Something that’s published by a website in, say, the US, may not automatically be repeated on a UK website if it would break English law.

Similarily, just because it’s on the web doesn’t mean you can copy/paste chunks of someone else’s work and pass it off as yours. The copyright laws of the country in which the website you are posting to is based apply to all material. Be especially careful with photographs – just because it comes up in a Google Images search doesn’t mean you can use it.

The general rule-of-thumb is that if the material is produced by someone as part of their job (for instance a photograph taken by a newspaper’s photographer), copyright rest with the company that employs them. While material produced by an individual (eg a video they made and posted to YouTube or a picture they took and added to FlickR), copyright rests with the individual. The principle is that you cannot copy the material without the copyright owner’s permission.

However, you can usually reference it or quote from it or use part of it (“less than a substantial part”) as long as you make clear who the author is and where it came from. And sites such as YouTube may encourage you embed or email certain videos but within a framing structure they control and which makes ownership clear.

A lot depends on how and where you plan to use a photograph or quotes. Just because you’ve added something to your own blog, doesn’t mean you can do the same thing on another website. Do not add a picture, video, or substantial quotes from an article you haven’t produced to material uploaded to the university’s (or any another media organisation’s) website without the agreement of your news editor.

Finally, if you’re posting your material to a website or blog which encourages comments, make sure you know who is responsible for moderating those comments. It may be your responsisbility rather than the website's so you need to ensure that any offensive or racist material, or anything which could be seen as someone else to be racist, to attack other people or cause criminal damage is removed.

Writing wikis

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Writing for a blog

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Using quotes

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plus e-interviews